[MlMt] Moving to a new computer

[Annamarie]

Hello

Finally forced by Mojave to buy a new computer - I love my 2011 MacBook
Air. !

Anyways I want to make sure I do this right. MM is set up with all my
accounts but I want my signatures and smart folders. I think that if I
copy the entire MM folder from the ~/library/Application Support I’ll
end up duplicating emails?

Can I simply copy the various .plists? I see
Blacklist.plist
Identities.plist
Mailboxes.plist
Signatures.plist
Sources.plist
Submission.plist
Tags.plist

I probably just want blacklist, mailboxes and signatures? Yes. Anything
else I should do? I only found one article from 2014 in the archives.

Thanks
Annamarie

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

Post by Annamarie
Finally forced by Mojave to buy a new computer - I love my 2011
MacBook Air. !
Anyways I want to make sure I do this right. MM is set up with all my
accounts but I want my signatures and smart folders. I think that if
I copy the entire MM folder from the ~/library/Application Support
I’ll end up duplicating emails?
Can I simply copy the various .plists? I see
Blacklist.plist
Identities.plist
Mailboxes.plist
Signatures.plist
Sources.plist
Submission.plist
Tags.plist
I probably just want blacklist, mailboxes and signatures? Yes.
Anything else I should do? I only found one article from 2014 in the
archives.

Just take all of the `.plist` files. Then you don't need to configure
the accounts and all emails are fetched from the servers building a new
database in MailMate.

You won't get the `defaults` (which also means Preferences) changes.
That can be done by copying the following file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.freron.MailMate.plist

But I believe this has to be done before launching MailMate for the
first time (because the system caches it in memory).

[Bill Cole]

Post by Benny Kjær Nielsen

Post by Annamarie
Finally forced by Mojave to buy a new computer - I love my 2011
MacBook Air. !
Anyways I want to make sure I do this right. MM is set up with all my
accounts but I want my signatures and smart folders. I think that if
I copy the entire MM folder from the ~/library/Application Support
I’ll end up duplicating emails?
Can I simply copy the various .plists? I see
Blacklist.plist
Identities.plist
Mailboxes.plist
Signatures.plist
Sources.plist
Submission.plist
Tags.plist
I probably just want blacklist, mailboxes and signatures? Yes.
Anything else I should do? I only found one article from 2014 in the
archives.

Just take all of the `.plist` files. Then you don't need to configure
the accounts and all emails are fetched from the servers building a
new database in MailMate.
You won't get the `defaults` (which also means Preferences) changes.
~/Library/Preferences/com.freron.MailMate.plist
But I believe this has to be done before launching MailMate for the
first time (because the system caches it in memory).

An alternative approach is to use the 'export' and 'import' subcommands
to 'defaults' command, which assures that you get precisely what the
system believes to be the current defaults.

--
Bill Cole

[Annamarie]

Well that computer went back to the seller as it wasn't charging so I
get to do it over again and right when I get whatever new computer I
decide on. @Bill I don't see an "export" command?

@Benny so when I am installing MM on the new computer - do I create a
Mailmate folder in application support and put the `plist` files in that
folder? Before installing MM? or is there a window between install and
launch?

Thanks (and I hope my query helps others.)
Annamarie


Annamarie Pluhar
802-451-1941
802-579-5975 (iPhone - not good when I'm at my desk.)

Post by Bill Cole

Post by Benny Kjær Nielsen

Post by Annamarie
Finally forced by Mojave to buy a new computer - I love my 2011
MacBook Air. !
Anyways I want to make sure I do this right. MM is set up with all
my accounts but I want my signatures and smart folders. I think
that if I copy the entire MM folder from the ~/library/Application
Support I’ll end up duplicating emails?
Can I simply copy the various .plists? I see
Blacklist.plist
Identities.plist
Mailboxes.plist
Signatures.plist
Sources.plist
Submission.plist
Tags.plist
I probably just want blacklist, mailboxes and signatures? Yes.
Anything else I should do? I only found one article from 2014 in the
archives.

Just take all of the `.plist` files. Then you don't need to configure
the accounts and all emails are fetched from the servers building a
new database in MailMate.
You won't get the `defaults` (which also means Preferences) changes.
~/Library/Preferences/com.freron.MailMate.plist
But I believe this has to be done before launching MailMate for the
first time (because the system caches it in memory).

An alternative approach is to use the 'export' and 'import'
subcommands to 'defaults' command, which assures that you get
precisely what the system believes to be the current defaults.
--
Bill Cole
_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

Post by Annamarie
Well that computer went back to the seller as it wasn't charging so I
get to do it over again and right when I get whatever new computer I

With `export` (and `import`) Bill means arguments to the `defaults`
command. Curiously, these are not documented in the man page of
`defaults`, but they are listed if you, e.g., run the `defaults` command
without any arguments:

defaults

To be more specific, something like this should work:

defaults export com.freron.MailMate ~/Desktop/MyMailMatePrefs.plist

And then on the new machine:

defaults import com.freron.MailMate ~/Desktop/MyMailMatePrefs.plist

(I haven't actually tried the above.)

As noted before, I think simply copying the file should work if you
haven't yet launched MailMate on the new machine.

Post by Annamarie
@Benny so when I am installing MM on the new computer - do I create a
Mailmate folder in application support and put the `plist` files in
that folder?

Yes.

Post by Annamarie
Before installing MM? or is there a window between install and launch?

Do it before launching MailMate. If you fail to do that then you can
just delete the contents of the folder first.

[Bill Cole]

Benny or anyone else…
Why should we copy just the plists and prefs and refetch all the
mails? If I follow the recommendation below, that what we should do.
However, with 100k mails in dozen IMAP accounts, this will take a
while. I would rather copy the entire MailMate folder from the
Application Support and com.freron.MailMate.plist from Preferences to
another computer. Direct copy is fast.

I tried that. It was ugly, because I used 'rsync' without the flag to
replicate extended attributes, which MM uses to store a message UID. I
was fortunate to have been watching how the whole process worked...

So *MAYBE* you can make it work but you should make absolutely certain
that you replicate extended attributes and when you fire up MM
afterwards, WATCH what MM does and be prepared to kill it and work out
any issues you have.

I can't imagine Benny recommending mail cache replication, given the
risks that it carries.

[Zvi Biener]

For the record, I’ve copied the entire MailMate folder using Finder,
with no detectable problem. Many of my emails are on an Exchange server
that doesn’t deal well with tags, so this was pretty much necessary.
I’d be interested to know if there are problem underneath that I
simply never detected.

Post by Bill Cole

Benny or anyone else…
Why should we copy just the plists and prefs and refetch all the
mails? If I follow the recommendation below, that what we should do.
However, with 100k mails in dozen IMAP accounts, this will take a
while. I would rather copy the entire MailMate folder from the
Application Support and com.freron.MailMate.plist from Preferences
to another computer. Direct copy is fast.

I tried that. It was ugly, because I used 'rsync' without the flag to
replicate extended attributes, which MM uses to store a message UID.
I was fortunate to have been watching how the whole process worked...
So *MAYBE* you can make it work but you should make absolutely
certain that you replicate extended attributes and when you fire up
MM afterwards, WATCH what MM does and be prepared to kill it and work
out any issues you have.
I can't imagine Benny recommending mail cache replication, given the
risks that it carries.

Would copying a folder in Finder not copy all the attributes?
If I refetch all my mails, what about all the flags and tags that I
have set on my mails? Hundreds of them.
Robert_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate

[Bill Cole]

Post by Bill Cole

Benny or anyone else…
Why should we copy just the plists and prefs and refetch all the
mails? If I follow the recommendation below, that what we should do.
However, with 100k mails in dozen IMAP accounts, this will take a
while. I would rather copy the entire MailMate folder from the
Application Support and com.freron.MailMate.plist from Preferences
to another computer. Direct copy is fast.

I tried that. It was ugly, because I used 'rsync' without the flag to
replicate extended attributes, which MM uses to store a message UID.
I was fortunate to have been watching how the whole process worked...
So *MAYBE* you can make it work but you should make absolutely
certain that you replicate extended attributes and when you fire up
MM afterwards, WATCH what MM does and be prepared to kill it and work
out any issues you have.
I can't imagine Benny recommending mail cache replication, given the
risks that it carries.

Would copying a folder in Finder not copy all the attributes?

I would expect that it would.

In my case I was copying across a problematic wireless network so a
Finder copy would have been almost as slow as re-download.

If I refetch all my mails, what about all the flags and tags that I
have set on my mails? Hundreds of them.

That depends on your IMAP servers. I don't know how exactly MM handles
tags/flags for IMAP accounts on servers that don't have full keyword
support.